Maaza Mengiste is a Fulbright Scholar, photographer, and the award-winning author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books. The novel was named one of the best books of 2010 by Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly and other publications. Her fiction and nonfiction […]

Elaine Avila is the Playwright in Residence at Quest University Canada, and has had residencies at Pomona College, Western Washington University and the Playwrights Theatre Centre. Her plays have been produced in Panama City, Sintra, Pico, Costa Rica, London, New York, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria and include: Jane Austen, Action Figure (Winner, Best New Play, Festival de los Cocos, Panama City) Lieutenant […]

Alexander Chee is a recipient of a 2003 Whiting Award, a 2004 NEA Fellowship in Fiction and a 2010 MCCA Fellowship, and residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the VCCA, Ledig House, the Hermitage, Civitella Ranieri and Amtrak. His first novel, Edinburgh (2001), is a winner of the Michener Copernicus Prize, the AAWW Lit Award and the […]

Leslie Jamison is the author of The Empathy Exams, a New York Times bestselling essay collection, and a novel, The Gin Closet, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, Oxford American, A Public Space, Boston Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, and the New York Times, […]

Stephanie’s new play TAILS OF WASPS recently premiered with New Century Theatre Company.  She just received an Elizabeth George Commission from Tony-Award winning South Coast Repertory Theatre.  She recently adapted THE RAMAYANA for ACT Theatre’s 2012 mainstage season, with playwright Yussef el Guindi. Her play SWEET NOTHING: A GRIM (FAIRY)TALE, produced by Macha Monkey, was […]

Born on the coast of the Baltic Sea, Stefan Kiesbye studied drama and worked in radio before starting a degree in American studies, English and comparative literature at Berlin’s Free University. A scholarship brought him to Buffalo, NY, and he received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. His stories, poems and […]

Noy Holland’s latest work is I Was Trying to Describe What It Feels Like: New and Selected Stories, out now from Counterpoint Press. Noy’s debut novel, Bird, came out in 2015 to much critical acclaim. Other collections of short fiction and novellas include Swim for the Little One First (FC2), What Begins with Bird (FC2), […]

David Caplan is the author of the poetry collection In the World He Created According to His Will (University of Georgia Press, 2010), as well as three books of criticism, most recently, Rhyme’s Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014). He received the 2012 Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry […]

Jacqueline Goldfinger is a Philadelphia based playwright and dramaturg who teaches playwriting at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s a co-Founder of The Foundry, an organization that supports the development of emerging playwrights. Her new play, Skin & Bone, will world premiere at Azuka Theatre this spring. Her play, Slip/Shot, won the 2012 Barrymore Award for […]